July 22, 2024

Team Penske driver Ryan Blaney finished third in Sunday's Brickyard 400 after being in position to take the victory late. Starting from the seventh position, Blaney looked strong early on in the first stage and ran in the Top 10 for most of the stage. After taking his first pit stop on lap 27, Blaney took advantage of others pitting at different times to finish third at the end of stage one, collecting stage points in the process. In stage two, Blaney maintained track position across multiple cautions and gained more stage points by placing fourth at the end of the stage. In the third stage, Blaney was involved in a wreck on lap 110 when Carson Hocevar turned him into Austin Dillon. Although Blaney received minor damage from the crash, it wasn't enough to eliminate him from contention, and then he pitted for tires and fuel. Blaney stayed off of pit road for the rest of the race and was contending for the win against Brad Keselowski and Kyle Larson. When Keselowski ran out of fuel, Blaney lost the lead to Larson, and on the final restart, Blaney fell back to third, ending the race with a podium finish as the race was called by a caution after the white flag. This race marked Blaney's seventh top-5 finish of the year as well as the first of his Cup career at Indianapolis. With the Cup Series heading to Richmond next, he will look to improve on his finish of 19th from the last Cup event at the site earlier in the year.--Sean Engel - RotoBaller
Source: NASCAR.com